


And the Bloody Lipmarks On Her Thighs

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula is always in control of the situation. Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Bloody Lipmarks On Her Thighs

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://poorcynic.livejournal.com/profile)[**poorcynic**](http://poorcynic.livejournal.com/)  for beta'ing this.
> 
>  **Warning:** Although the archive warnings don't seem to cover this, this story does involve a) implicit relationships with unclear consent issues (drugs which shift loyalty but otherwise leave mental processes unchanged, and uneven power dynamics caused by social standing), and b) implicit incestuous urges. For your consideration.

Azula smiled as the doors to the lab slid open. Inside, her new handmaiden was just slipping free of the straps, eyes wide and lips thinned.

“Hello.”

The girl on the table glanced up, eyes narrowing. “What am I doing here?”

“Well,” Azula purred, “after your brother’s betrayal –”

“What?”

“You don’t remember?” Azula asked, widening her eyes. She moved closer and took hold of Katara’s arm, held it up to the light and lightly traced the thin white scars of the needles. The skin was cold under her fingers. “Death of a thousand cuts, it looked like. You were quite a mess afterwards. And of course, we couldn’t just leave you like that, now could we?”

“Sokka did _what_?” She’s kept some parts of her memory, then. Azula thought that she might need to have a word with the scientists, but she could still work with this.

“Well, I wasn’t there, of course, but it seems he’s turned on you. Him and the rest of the group, although as it was his weapons that took you out, I’d say he was the one most eager to get rid of you.”

“But…” She pressed a hand to her forehead, and Azula smiled. The prisoner was still groggy, still taking time to process everything. Malleable.

“I would imagine you were the voice of reason, weren’t you? They were always pushing for the faster technique, the way to make a mark, the ways that would get innocent people hurt. And you didn’t like that, did you? You were more moderate, wiser. You didn’t want innocent civilians of my father’s empire to be hurt.” Katara nodded slowly, the facts just close enough to the truth and her mind just far enough from the surface. “So,” Azula continued, carefully grave, “well…”

“I guess you can figure out the rest,” Ty Lee offered from behind, sounding unexpectedly sympathetic.

“Bastards,” Mai agreed, voice dull as the steel of the table. “Want our help getting back at them?”

“What?”

“Join us!” Ty Lee chirped. “There’s plenty of room for a fourth Angel.”

“Uhm…” Katara rubbed a hand over her face, blinking. “Can I think about it?”

“No.” Azula stroked the wall gently, running her fingers across an unlabelled switch by the door. “Of course, you’re free to refuse.”

Katara had the mind that Azula thought she had. Of course.

\----

“I’m curious about your new project, Azula,” Emperor Ozai said coolly. “Why did you make our prisoner your handmaiden?”

“She is skilled, and the only Waterbender whose services are available to me. Besides, imagine the effect on the resistance when they see their champion fighting at my side.” She smirked, inviting him to share her victory.

“I’m not sure I approve,” he said, frowning over the rim of his glass. “This girl is a dangerous resistance fighter.”

“You don’t trust me to control her, Papa?” Azula asked, leaning backwards and resting her weight on her elbows. The angry red silk of her  
dress pulled tight across her breasts, she knew. “Or are you just concerned for your favorite child?” She was being daring tonight, but everything required risk.

His calm gaze remained focused on his wine. She cursed, fingers digging into the carpet. Careful, always careful.

“I want her on Imprint serum.”

No. She could do this without resorting to drugs, just as her father had done. She could manipulate anyone. She didn’t need the risk to her prize, didn’t need to chance weakening her captive just to stay safe.

“Of course, Father. If you say so.”

\----

Katara slept curled in on herself, eyebrows drawn over her forehead, teeth set on her lower lip. She’d clearly been restless; her nightgown was in disarray, maggot-colored silk twisted hiked up around her thighs. The blanket lay crumpled on a heap beside the bed.

Azula knelt, carefully. Katara shifted slightly as the needle slid into her upper arm, but nothing more.

The sedative would be wearing off soon, so she stayed. If she wasn’t there when the girl awoke, all the effort would be wasted.

It wasn’t long before Katara shifted and muttered, blinking awake. Azula set one hand on the sleeper’s wrist, smiling as the other girl turned to her. Smiling as Katara’s eyes glazed over and her lips curled up.

She set her other hand on Katara’s shoulder and pushed her back to the mattress, thumbnail glistening at the base of her throat.

Her prizes were hers, whatever methods her father mandated to achieve them.

\----

“Mai,” Azula whispered, staring down at the circle of plotters as their most important target rose to speak. “Kill him.”

Her handmaiden nodded, eyes as hard as the steel flickering gracefully across the room. Azula heard the chorus of screams and smiled as the groups below leaped to their feet, sending tables and papers flying. Azula had hoped they’d turn on each other, but it didn’t seem to be happening. Pity.

“Ty Lee. Mai. Katara and I will go after the Swordspark rabble; you hunt down the remaining Lotus members. No mercy.”

“Gotcha, Azula!” Ty Lee chirped. “Should we perform for the cameras?”

“No, it’s better right now that they just disappear. Make sure not to let them get to Burning Sea Way.”

“Are you sure they won’t be taking any of the alleyways?” Mai asked, re-adjusting her knives. Azula raised an eyebrow.

“Of course. You didn’t think that incident with the train of Opitierine gas yesterday was a coincidence, did you?”

Katara whistled.

“That’s our Princess!” Ty Lee squealed, tapping her toes against the tile. The group below was still getting themselves out the door, Azula noted with some amusement. If she weren’t better-informed than they about the surveillance in this place, they’d all be dead already.

“Go, you two,” she ordered. “Head them off somewhere on Traitor’s Lane. Katara and I are going to ambush them on that path behind the warehouses.”

“Have fun,” Mai deadpanned, setting off. Azula nodded, then took hold of Katara’s wrist and pulled her across the decaying rooftops with a proprietary smile.

Even dodging the old winches and weaving through wires, progress upon their rooftop path was far faster than the fugitives’ trail through the tangled aorta of the alleys below. Azula checked her screen as she and Katara slithered to the ground in the last alley before the main streets.

“Our targets are behind us, still trying to figure out which alleys aren’t blocked,” she told Katara, smiling. The Waterbender nodded.

“I checked. The closest are at Rotgut Way, right?”

Azula blinked, one eyebrow raised. Initiative. Interesting. Hard to plan for, but valuable. “Correct. We could hunt them down, but it’s better to wait in ambush.”

“So, should we hide?”

“No, not mobile enough. We should look innocent.”

“Innocent?” Katara sounded amused.

“Well… perhaps not _innocent_.” Azula gripped the other woman’s shoulders, gleaming red fingernails digging into the cloth, and pulled back until the Firebender was pressed against the wall. She could already feel the buzz pumping under her skin: the warmth of power, of _control_.  
Katara had caught on, she noted, shifting so it seemed like she had the princess pinned against the brick. Azula slid her hands across her handmaiden’s body, reaching up to squeeze at her breasts with no question in her mind about whether this was acceptable. She dragged her shirt loose, fingernails catching on the cloth, and maneuvered the Waterbender closer against her, fingers commanding Katara to deepen the act. She did. One hand twisted into Azula’s tightly-pinned hair, while the other rested at her waist, working up under her shirt. The thumb dipped just slightly, almost accidentally, under the waistband of her breeches, tracing light circles that made Azula smile just a little more deeply as she pressed her lips against the grime-streaked skin of the Waterbender’s shoulders. Her eyes stayed focused down the alley, watching for their prey.

Just as Katara gasped in her ear, Azula spotted movement down the alley. She ground against Katara, pressed her lips against her ear, and purred “ _Attack. Now._ ”

Katara was good, she had to admit it. The other girl leaped clear in a heartbeat, sending a water-whip of slime crashing across the alleyway. The leader leaped back, shrieking curses, and Azula followed it up with a crackling band of fire that swirled past him and obliterated his back as the flames curled back into her hands. Katara speared the next woman through with the frozen remains of her sludgy sewage whip, then snatched the blood oozing out around the wound and formed it into a cascade of darts that she fired at the next victim. They punched straight through his throat and shattered against the wall further back, sending a spray of icy shrapnel against the retreaters. Azula grinned and sent a fireball arcing over their heads, clenching her teeth as she contained the blast perfectly, _perfectly_ , to cut a gaping chasm across the alley and cut any hope of escape from the rear.

At that, Katara darted _backwards_ , and Azula was just coiling another fireball for that when she realized the Waterbender was raising her hands towards the sky. Recognizing the trick that had lost her the Ash Ghetto disaster, she backpedaled just as Katara condensed the clouds above into a waterfall crashing directly on top of their opponents. It knocked them off their feet and into the rising tide of alley muck, sent them skidding into the walls and the newly-carved ditch as they spluttered and chocked. Azula yanked Katara back from the edge of the deluge and sent a burst of lightning into the center of the spreading pool. The shrieking got even louder as sparks flew and bodies crackled, arching and jittering as the electricity swept through them.

Smiling, Azula kept the beam steady as the sparks flickered off the walls and the bodies smoked in the water.

\----

“Katara, why are you doing this?” Aang pleaded, tugging against the chains holding his wrists to the wall. “We thought you were _dead!_ ” Sokka just stared, wide-eyed and snarling.

“She’s been one of my best agents,” Azula purred, slipping into the dungeon. She’d waited in the hallway until now, to let the touching little reunion unfold. “Quite a jewel in the hilt of the royal sword.” She slid an arm around Katara and dug her fingers into the other girl’s hip, tugging her close. “You did very well,” she murmured, lips almost pressed against Katara’s cheek. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Aang’s anguished gaping. Good. She straightened and scanned the faces along the wall. “Dear Zuko.” She stepped forward and gripped his chin, pulling him up to meet her eyes. She was close enough to smell the sweat rolling off him, the vomit on his breath. “It’s such a pleasure to see you again, my brother.” She turned and shot one of her best smirks at Mai, who stood motionless behind her. “Your loyalty is commendable, Mai,” Azula purred, resting one hand on her shoulder. Making sure Zuko could see, she traced her thumb slowly across the top of Mai’s breast. She pressed her lips to her handmaiden’s cheek, knowing Mai was clenching her teeth. “I am very pleased with you.”

Azula turned back to the prisoners and paced the length of the cell, inspecting her haggard prizes face by face, bruise by bruise, broken bone by broken bone. The cell was silent except for the rustle of her clothes, the clicking of her heels, the harsh breathing of the prisoners. Every last eye in the room was trained on her. She held absolute power over every single person in this room right then, and every last one of them knew it in every fiber of her being.

This was what she lived for.

\----

Three days later a familiar knife flew through the air, towards the throne. The world imploded.

\----

Azula stared, eyes glazed and hair ragged. Her bruised and battered wrists were twisted above her head; she dangled from the chains, sick with rage and battle-fever and the absolute, disgusting, shameful misery of having _lost_. In the space of a week, she had lost everything.

Logically, she knew that it was not all her fault. Ozai had failed too, and so had all of his guards, and all of her own. But none of that changed the fundamental fact that she had been threatened, and she had fought, and she had lost. She had lost to the people who had been completely in her thrall.

She’d lost battles before.

It was her father, and his ministers, who had lost the war.

But none of that changed the fact that it was she who had lost _control_.

Zuko watched her from a makeshift throne, fists clenched in his lap. Ty Lee was slumped on the ground in the corner, her hands covering her face. Mai, sitting at the Fire Lord’s side, nodded to the girl in blue standing across from the former Fire Nation princess.

“Katara,” she asked, voice still gravelly in the aftermath of the gas-filled battle she'd begun, “would you like to do the honors?”

Katara smiled tightly, lifting her hands into a ceremonial stance. “My pleasure.”


End file.
